


The Goodness of My Heart

by kethni



Series: Trinity Chronicles [3]
Category: American Gothic (TV 1995)
Genre: F/M, Sequel, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21972091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: For CrazyMaryT
Relationships: Lucas Buck/Selena Coombs
Series: Trinity Chronicles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1581667
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Goodness of My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> For CrazyMaryT

Selena kicked up clouds of leaves as she walked. Fall had come a little early to Trinity and the heat of summer had barely worn away. A flatbed truck whooshed past her and the boys in the back hooted and hollered at her. She rolled her eyes. Boys her own age were so tiresome.

She was studiously ignoring the patrol car a couple blocks back. She’d seen him turn onto the street a couple minutes ago. She knew who it was of course. There was only person who would be prowling along after her. Any other deputy would have pulled right up. The sheriff didn’t drive a marked car and if he did… well she thought he was the type to drive up on the sidewalk in front of her. Subtle wasn’t in their family DNA.

She was probably supposed to stop and wait for the car to catch up. Making her wait was exactly the sort of thing Lucas would do. Instead, Selena turned sharply into the little scrap of land between the ice cream parlour and the gun shop. It didn’t have a name. It wasn’t even large enough to be called an alley, but it was just enough for Selena to slip between the two stores and skew across to the lane that ran perpendicular to the street.

Lucas would have to drive all the way around. He _could_ catch up with her, if she stayed on the lane. If she were to cut through here, climb over this fence, and walk along the river, then she would walk unseen pretty much all the way home.

The sheriff’s department car was parked outside her house. Selena put her hand on her hip as she glowered at it. Lucas wasn’t in the car. That raised the unpleasant possibility that he was inside with her daddy.

It was tempting to leave them to it. Her daddy loathed the sheriff and hardly liked Lucas any better. Especially since he was pretty sure that Lucas had… What? There wasn’t a phrase that covered it which didn’t him entirely too much credit. He hadn’t taken anything that she’d had any use for. He certainly hadn’t “made her” a woman. If sex was the route to womanhood, then the most she was willing to accede was that he had helped.

Selena shrugged. It was hardly worth the effort of debating it. She did, however, check her hair in the car window before she went into the house. There was no excuse not to look her best.

Her daddy and Lucas were in the kitchen sipping on lemonade. Lucas was leaning back against the cabinet while her daddy was by the sink. They looked entirely too friendly to Selena’s way of thinking. It was true that Lucas meant to unseat his own daddy, but there was no reason for Selena’s daddy to know that.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ her daddy demanded.

She hung up her light jacket. ‘Walking home. I’d have been here twenty minutes ago if I had a car.’

‘Don’t start on me about a car!’

‘You know how to drive, Miss Coombes?’ Lucas asked.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m an exceptional driver. The instructor said so.’

Her daddy snorted. ‘What did you have to do to get him to say that?’

She smiled sweetly. ‘Drive exceptionally well.’ She pulled the glass of lemonade from Lucas’s fingers and drained the glass in one swallow.

Her daddy turned puce. Lucas smiled.

‘Your navigation skills seem a mite… erratic,’ Lucas said. ‘You might want to brush up on that before you get a car.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Deputy. Perhaps you need to drive less and walk more. They’re very different enterprises.’

She turned and began to walk away.

‘Where’re you going?’ her daddy demanded.

‘Up to my room. I got homework to do.’

‘The deputy is here to see you, and not in your room neither,’ her daddy said.

Selena looked at Lucas over her shoulder. ‘That so? I can’t imagine how I was supposed to know that without a soul telling me.’

Lucas held up his hands conciliatorily. ‘Mea culpa,’ he said. ‘It was remiss of me not to say so to you when you came in.’

‘Well?’

Lucas turned to her daddy. ‘It’s sheriff’s department business.’

‘Am I under arrest?’ Selena asked tartly.

‘Not yet,’ Lucas said, grinning.

‘Your mama must be spinning in her grave,’ her daddy grated as he headed out to the living room. ‘And leave this door open.’

Selena rolled her eyes. ‘We ain’t gonna roll around on the _floor_ , daddy!’

Lucas tapped his knuckles on the table and winked at her.

She pouted as she leaned against the sink. ‘Don’t you wink at me, Lucas Buck. I ain’t in the mood for being charmed.’

‘What are you in the mood for?’

She folded her arms. ‘I’d like to play pinata. Get a rope and I’ll suspend you from the peach tree in the garden.’

He sniffed. ‘You’re ticked about Caitlin Temple.’

‘What reason would I have to be ticked?’ she asked. ‘You can cruise around with any girl you please, and you frequently do. I don’t own you anymore than you own me. What I find _disrespectful,_ is that when you want something from me, you’re buzzing around like flies on a pie, but as soon as you get what you want then you’re in the wind.’

He pursed his lips. ‘Did seem to bother you when you were stepping out with Bill Harris.’

‘There you go again trying to muddy the waters by dragging other people into it,’ she complained. ‘Why are you here, Lucas? You want something, don’t you?’

‘I may have been somewhat ungracious,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps I took you for granted a little.’

Selena put her hand on her hip. ‘You could start by answering the question.’

He shrugged. ‘Happen there’s something you could help me with.’

‘What’s in it for me?’

He affected innocence. ‘Isn’t helping each other a thing that friends do?’

She snorted. ‘Me, doing something out of the goodness of my heart? You must have me confused with someone else.’

He moved closer and brushed her hair behind her ear. ‘What do you want?’

She gazed up at him. ‘A car.’

‘A _car_? You don’t even know what I’m gonna ask you.’

‘Not necessarily new,’ she allowed. ‘But something good quality and reliable.’

Lucas laughed as he shook his head. ‘You want to do a deal with me, Selena?’

‘I want my work to be appreciated for its worth,’ she said. ‘I already helped you once and all I got for it was a smile and a pat on the head.’

He put his hand on the counter behind her, leaning in very close. ‘That ain’t _all_ you got now, is it?’

She tilted her head. ‘That’s a separate thing,’ she said softly. ‘If you think you can pay your way with rolls in the grass then you are overestimating your worth and underestimating mine.’

He began to grin. ‘I’ve missed this.’

‘Uh huh.’ She wet her lips. ‘What’s it to be, Deputy?’

‘How will your daddy feel if you’re suddenly roaming around in a neat little pre-owned Chevy?’

‘Please, if you cared what he thought then you wouldn’t have just put your hand inside my dress,’ she said sweetly.

Lucas cupped her face with his other hand and kissed her. ‘Happen there is something you can do for me.’

‘You’re confusing you asking, with me offering.’

‘Doc Haller likes to do his admin work at home,’ he said. ‘I’d like to look at some of his records but those pesky medical ethics…’

Selena bit her lip as she felt his fingers slide inside her. ‘I suppose there’s no point in me asking why?’

‘Let’s not pretend that you actually care.’

She shrugged. ‘A girl can be curious by nature.’

He pursed his lips. ‘My daddy has been… a little more friendly with some of the local ladies than I think is entirely wise for a man of his advanced years.’

‘Please don’t say he’s got some kind of terrible affliction,’ she asked. Her voice was catching as his thumb stroked her delicate nub.

Lucas chuckled. ‘He’s working on the worst kind of affliction, but I don’t know if he’s achieved it yet. He not as young and potent as he was when I came into the world.’

Selena widened her eyes. ‘Ain’t he a little old for giving you younger kin?’

‘He means to prove that wrong.’

‘And you don’t want that?’ 

‘He don’t _exactly_ have my best interests at hand.’

Selena was thoughtful. ‘I don’t know Doc Haller. How do you imagine I can help? I ain’t about to start a career in burglary.’

‘He’s looking for a babysitter while his momma is sick,’ Lucas said. ‘I suggested you.’

‘Did you?’ She tilted back her head and closed her eyes. ‘And without asking me first. I ought to make you give me a convertible for that.’

He lowered his lips to her ear. ‘Maybe I’ll get you one anyway.’

‘My daddy is still in the house,’ she murmured.

‘Don’t that make it sweeter?’

She turned around and leaned forward. ‘You got strange tastes, Deputy.’

He pushed her sundress up around her waist and her panties around her ankles. Selena sighed as she felt him enter her.

He grunted slightly. ‘I like you.’

She looked over her shoulder. ‘That’s just good sense.’

***

Selena had never babysat anyone. She didn’t dislike children particularly, she didn’t have enough to do with them to have a firm opinion, but she was sort of girl that wives didn’t want around their husbands.

Doctor Haller didn’t have that problem, seeing as his wife had died the previous year, right after she’d opened her own bank account and rented a tiny apartment in Goat Town. She’d been found shot in the back. The sheriff had announced it an accident even before the coroner had picked up the body.

Selena listened dutifully as the mouth-breathing, red-faced man insisted on No Boys, No Smoking, and No Drinking, while she was caring for his two children. The girl, Jaimee-Ann was chewing on her hair. The boy, Bobby-John, kept shifting from foot to foot.

‘I’ll be home around eleven,’ Doc Haller said. ‘Do you have someone to drive you home?’

Selena blinked, surprised by the unexpected consideration. ‘Deputy Buck is going to pick me up.’

Haller winced. ‘Your daddy okay with that, is it?’

‘Not really,’ Selena admitted. ‘But he prefers it to picking me up himself.’

Haller’s walrus-like moustache twitched into something she suspected was a smile. ‘I’ll remember that when Jaimee-Ann starts dating.’ He pointed a stubby, tobacco-stained finger at Selena. ‘Deputy Buck isn’t to come inside.’

‘I understand; no friends and no boys,’ she said, slightly irritated.

‘Lucas Buck deserves his own prohibition,’ he said darkly.

Selena inclined her head. ‘Do you know him well?’ she asked innocently.

‘I delivered him.’ Haller shook his head. ‘Not something I’m likely to forget.’ He ruffled Jaimee-Ann’s hair. ‘Quit doing that, girl. You’re gonna give yourself a bezoar.’

***

Selena helped the children with their homework, which she enjoyed more than she would have ever guessed, and then made them supper. She asked a couple of questions about them because that seemed like the right thing to do. What she wanted to ask about was Lucas, or maybe what really happened with their momma. Naturally, there was little point asking a third and fifth grader anything like that. They likely would have no interest and even less information.

After supper they wanted to play a game. Selena had them hide with the promise that she would come find them. It was a game with two definite pros: 1) they were less likely to get overstimulated before bed and 2) it gave her an excuse to wander around the house a little.

Lucas had told her that the office was upstairs in the back of the house, but she wanted to check the lay of the land before she committed herself to “borrowing” any records. If her timing was off, then she might have to make an exit very quickly.

She was a _little_ agitated, but it was more excitement then she’d had lately. Whatever else, Lucas was never boring.

She knew that Bobby-John was hiding in the parlour. His feet were sticking out from under the drapes and even if he’d hidden better, his little paunch made a noticeable bulge in the material. She let him stay there while she scanned the rest of the rooms downstairs for Jaimee-Anne. Their lives seemed joyless enough without stopping his fun of imagining he was deceiving her.

She stepped on the bottom stair, which creaked. Bobby-John immediately began giggling in delight. Selena rolled her eyes.

‘I can hear you laughing!’

He made a valiant effort to stop but between the muffled laughter and him throwing his hands over his mouth, which _completely_ pulled the drapes open, she would have had to have been blind and deaf not to know he was there. 

Selena walked across to the drapes and pulled them open. Bobby-John giggled happily. Selena couldn’t resist her own laugh.

‘Come on, let’s find your sister. I think she’s upstairs.’

He tramped alongside her as they walked up the stairway. He grabbed the bannister tightly. It was dark ahead of them, with only dim light coming through the upper windows to illuminate.

‘I don’t like the dark,’ he said.

‘I’m right here, sweetie,’ Selena promised. ‘I won’t let any monsters get you.’

He huddled closer as the floorboards creaked underfoot. Selena’s questing fingers found a light switch but the light from the dusty lamps only added shade to the shadows.

‘What’s down there?’ she asked pointing down the corridor.

His face screwed up in thought. ‘My room and Jaimee-Anne’s room and the bathroom.’

She pointed in the other direction. ‘What’s down there?’

‘Daddy’s bedroom and his study and the guest bedroom.’ He pointed at the ceiling. ‘The attic is up there! But we ain’t allowed and there’s a ghost!’

‘Oh my gosh! Well, we won’t go up there,’ she promised. ‘Do you want to search your room and I’ll search Jaimee-Anne’s?’

‘Yes Miss!’

She tapped her foot as she thought. Surely a man like Doc Haller wouldn’t let the children in his bedroom or study, so Jaimee-Anne wouldn’t be in there and Selena could likely get away with a _quick_ look without the children seeing her.

As she reached the door to his study, she heard a cough from the bathroom. She didn’t know what games their grandmother played with them, but their hide and seek skills were woeful.

Selena wrapped her handkerchief over the brightly buffed door handle and turned it. The door opened smoothly showing tall bookshelves crowded with heavy books. The desk had a pile of files in one corner. Selena heard a door handle rattle behind her. Bobby-John she figured.

She shut the study door, pushed her handkerchief into her pocket, and strode towards the bathroom. As Bobby-John ran into the corridor, she pushed open the bathroom door. 

‘There she is!’ he said, pointing at the shower curtain.

‘That’s not fair!’ Jaimee-Anne protested. ‘You ain’t allowed to help!’

‘It’s okay,’ Selena said. ‘You already won.’

Jaimee-Anne stuck her tongue out at Bobby-John. Selena hadn’t much thought about her having no siblings. This was a moment when she was grateful.

‘Okay!’ She clapped her hands together. ‘It’s time to get ready for bed.’

***

She waited until she was sure they were asleep. Bobby-John snored louder than a body that size should be capable of. Jaimee-Anne merely whistled.

Doc Haller had a liquor cabinet in the corner of the living room. She had promised him faithfully she wouldn’t touch it but she was already there to steal from him so what was one more sin when they were piling up.

She snuck a mouthful of his bourbon and wished she hadn’t. After she finished choking, she steadied herself, added a measure of water in case he checked the level, and went upstairs to the study.

It was only a little after nine but with the darkness and silence pressing in it felt like midnight. Selena took a deep breath as she again opened the door to the study. She found the lamp on the table and flicked it on. In her pocket she found the neatly folded slip of paper on which she’d written the name that Lucas had given her. She scanned through the tower of files and found the file around halfway through. She quickly went downstairs to the backdoor, opened it, and put the file outside behind some planters.

She was locking the door when she heard the kitchen door swing open. ‘You’re supposed to be in bed,’ she said, turning around.

Sheriff Buck lounged in the doorway. ‘That’s the best offer I’ve had in a while.’

Selena swallowed. ‘What’re you doing here?’

‘Could ask you the same thing,’ he said, looking her over slowly.

Selena put her hand in her pocket, feeling the reassuring presence of her little knife.

‘Doc Haller asked me to babysit,’ she said, tilting up her chin.

Buck nodded. ‘He told me,’ he said. ‘And then he told me that Lucas had recommended you.’

‘You say that as if explains anything.’

He smiled. He reminded her of a basking shark. ‘We both know Lucas. We both know he ain’t trying to help you earn pin money.’

‘If you want to know what Lucas intends then you should ask him,’ she said. ‘If you think he bares his soul to me then you have misunderstood our relationship.’

He came closer. Selena refused to move away, standing her ground as he looked over her. He dropped his face and sniffed her neck. ‘Smells like you two are reacquainted. I know he didn’t treat you with the respect deserved after all your help catching Mrs Deauville.’

‘Imagine a man not treating a woman with sufficient respect,’ Selena said with heavy sarcasm.

Buck shrugged. ‘What can I say? I did my best to raise the boy but somehow he just doesn’t treat women right.’

‘And you do, I suppose?’

Buck slowly licked his lips. ‘It’s widely known that there’s a lot to be said for experience.’

Selena snorted. ‘There’s a lot to be said for experienced _men_. If you had any interest in experienced women, you wouldn’t be here sniffing around a girl young enough to be your daughter.’

Buck put his hands on the counter behind her and leaned forward. Given the choice between leaning back and standing firm, Selena pushed herself forward. Challenging him to do his worst.

Buck only retreated a fraction, but it _was_ a retreat and they both knew it. She saw the acknowledgement in his eyes and smiled.

‘Lucas don’t know how to value women,’ Buck said. ‘But he surely knows how to pick ‘em.’

Selena sighed. ‘I can tell you think that’s a compliment and I’m sure that Lucas would be _thrilled_ that you approve his choices, but it doesn’t mean jack to me.’

Buck narrowed his eyes. ‘Why’re you here, Miss Combes?’

‘I told you, Sheriff, that I am babysitting.’

‘And I told you he had an ulterior motive,’ Buck said sharply. ‘I like you Miss Combes and I’d _hate_ for you to get caught up in this little… family contretemps.’

Selena noticed the door opening first. She managed not to smile but it was a close-run thing.

‘I hope you both know I won’t be sharing my babysitting money,’ she said.

‘I’m sure Doc Haller will be glad to know that his home is the most secure house in the whole of Trinity,’ Lucas drawled.

Buck glanced over his shoulder. ‘You got a reason to be here?’

‘I promised Miss Combes that I’d drive her home,’ Lucas said smoothly. ‘Doc Haller is just parking up outside.’ He tucked his thumbs in his belt. ‘Curious to know why you’re here, Sir.’

Buck narrowed his eyes. ‘We’ll discuss this at home.’

Lucas shrugged. ‘Anything you say. In the meanwhile, I should take Miss Coombes home.

Selena ducked under Buck’s arm. ‘I’ll see you around Sheriff,’ she said sweetly.

He grabbed for her arm. Lucas pulled her behind him.

‘You better believe you will,’ Buck said.

Doc Haller opened the front door just as Lucas and Selena reached it.

‘Great timing,’ Lucas said easily. ‘For reasons best known to himself, my daddy is in the kitchen. If you’ll pay Miss Combes her due, we’ll be on our way.’

Haller looked past them to the kitchen door. ‘Is there a problem, Sheriff?’

Buck shook his head. ‘Nothing I can’t deal with in the fullness of time. Give the young lady her pay, Jim, I’m sure she’s earned it.’

***

At the first set of lights, Lucas put his hand on Selena’s knee.

‘All that time you left me in there with your daddy coming on to me, and you expect me to get all giddy for your hand on my knee?’ she asked.

Lucas shook his head. ‘Soon as I got to the house, I came right in.’

‘By which time he’d been looming over me for nigh on long enough to seriously press his attentions,’ she said.

His hand tightened on her knee. ‘I will make it clear to him that is not acceptable.’

His tone was so completely different from usual, shorn of amusement and insouciance, that she stared at him. It wasn’t a tone that she ever wanted directed at _her_. She had seen some of Lucas in the sheriff before. It was the first time she had seen a streak of the sheriff in Lucas.

‘I would appreciate that,’ she said carefully.

As he turned onto her road, his hand slid up to her thigh. ‘Well, I appreciate you not telling my daddy what you were doing there.’

She looked across at him. ‘You heard that?’

He shrugged as he parked the car. ‘I came in the house right away. I just didn’t come in the kitchen immediately.’

Selena moved her foot across and pressed her heel into the toe of his shoe. As she pushed down, he closed his eyes and hissed.

‘I suppose I deserve that,’ he murmured.

‘You _deserve_ an elbow in the throat,’ she said. ‘But then you’d be in no mood to get in the back seat.’

He nodded. ‘Busting my foot is just about the line between exciting and unbearable. You can quit doing that, by the way.’

Selena pursed her lips. ‘You got the keys to my car?’

He dug in his pocket and held them up. ‘It’s the little Chevy just there.’

She snatched the keys and got out of the car. As she walked towards the Chevrolet, she heard Lucas get out of his car.

The Chevrolet was used, which she expected, but it had all the bells and whistles, which she didn’t expect.

Lucas slid his arm around her waist and bent his head to kiss her neck. ‘Does it meet your expectations?’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘The papers are in the glove box.’

Selena turned around. She looked up at him and smiled. ‘Shall we christen it?’

‘Why Miss Coombes, what a deviant mind you have,’ he said sweetly.

She unlocked the door and looked back at him. ‘The places we’ve had sex, deputy, the back seat of a car is downright innocent.’

***

Lucas bit her shoulder. Selena’s nails raked his back. The temperature rose quickly. Their breath condensed on the glass. She wrapped her legs tightly around him. He caressed her breasts and clit with a roughness that danced the line between ticklish and painful.

He covered her mouth when she came, staring into her eyes.

She pushed him off after he came.

‘Do that again and I’ll tell your daddy anything he wants to know,’ she said breathlessly.

He sat up and pulled up his pants. ‘Didn’t think you’d want your daddy comin’ out to investigate.’

‘Even for your, Lucas, that is a lame excuse.’ She pulled on her dress. ‘I’m not necessarily averse to explorin’ different ways of fun, but never spring it on me. You understand?’

Lucas grinned at her. ‘I can work with that.’

She sighed. ‘I suppose I should say thank you for rescuing me. You had the file already, so you could’ve just left me there.’

‘Me, doing something out of the goodness of my heart? You must have me confused with someone else,’ he said with a slight smile. 

‘Oh, I never thought you didn’t do it for your own benefit,’ she said. ‘Now get out of my car. I wanna take it for a spin.’

The End 


End file.
